Kindergarten Arts...Take Two

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This week I am taking the time to talk about how I teach each subject and also what changes I am making for the rest of the year.  If you didn't read the Classical Kindergarten...Take Two intro post, take a minute to read that first so you understand why I am making some changes for the rest of the year.

 How we have been incorporating the arts

This is one subject that isn't so concrete in our homeschool, so we are not really making any specific changes.  What I do want, is to try to spend more time with all aspects of the arts.  This is especially important to me because my daughter shows strong interest in art and music and I want to make sure to give her ample time and resources to do these things.  She is just 3 years old now, but she loves to watch YouTube videos of people playing classical music, which has caused her to be obsessed with the violin =)  It's pretty much all she talks about and she walks around most of the day with two red sticks pretending to play.  I told her that if she shows a little responsibility with a toy guitar we got her for Christmas that we could get her a violin for her birthday.  Here is a video of her playing her 'violin' and singing Hark! the Herald Angles Sing...

So for the sake of my music-loving daughter (and because I know it's good for everyone), we include all kinds of art in our homeschool.  I've written about most of it before.  Here are some of the posts:

Preschool SQUILT (Super Quiet Listening Time)

Harmony Fine Arts

Another look at specifically how we use Harmony Fine Arts.

 

How we use Music for Little Mozarts to learn piano and musical concepts.

I haven't written anything about it yet but we been learning to draw with Mona Brookes' Drawing with Children.

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Kindergarten History...Take Two

This post contains affiliate links to products we use and love!

This week I am taking the time to talk about how I teach each subject and also what changes I am making for the rest of the year.  If you didn't read the Classical Kindergarten...Take Two intro post, take a minute to read that first so you understand why I am making some changes for the rest of the year.

How we have been doing History

If you know anything about the classical model of education, you know that history is a big deal.  The study of history is usually the spine that holds all the rest of the subjects together.  As I began to love the idea of classical homeschooling, I began to get excited about starting to teach (and learn!) history.

Last year we began our study of the ancients, starting with creation and moving on from there.  We took a very hands-on approach, doing lots of crafts and activities, and read lot of books. (You can see some of what we did if you browse here.) I really liked this, but I was putting the whole curriculum together and I got tired.  It's not that I didn't enjoy planning everything out (because I love to plan), it's just that I was having a hard time finding the time to do it.

That was when I began to look for an actual history curriculum.  I knew that anything I found would be geared toward a little bit older kids, but I figured that I could simplify it as long as it would provide the basic structure for me.  What I finally decided on was the history curriculum from Veritas Press.  I fell in love with their history cards and timeline song.  I thought that memorizing a song would be perfect for my kids and that the order of events is what we could study, adding in age appropriate stories and activities.
  
Now before you get the feeling that I found something I didn't like about this curriculum (since this is a ...Take Two series) let me state that I LOVE Veritas Press history.  I love the history cards.  I love the timeline song.  You can read my full review of it to see more about what I love and how we have been using it.  I did decide to take a break from it for a little while, though.

The theme of this series is taking a step back to be able to enjoy my son, help him to regain confidence and not to get frustrated so easily.  Taking a step back from history is part of the plan.

History Changes

What we were doing was not too difficult for my son.  He loves singing the timeline song and looking at the flashcards.  I would read to him about the time period while we ate breakfast and we would do suggested activities and corresponding lapbook pieces about once a week.  Even so, I wanted to look into what else we could do for a few months while we are taking this step back.

Because I love Veritas Press so much, I wanted to see what they recommend for kindergarten history.  Come to find out, they published their own set of two books to be used for kindergarten and first grade, designed to be an introduction to history and the concept of a timeline.  The books seemed really simplistic, but they were pretty cheap, so I decided to order them.

Surprise, surprise, I think they are going to be just what we need!  Thanks again, Veritas Press =)   History of ME and History of US are designed to be used just once a week, and have simple stories, activities, and projects to help kids start to understand their own history and American history.

We've only used it once so far, but the book had us up, jumping, spinning, and learning about what a timeline is.  Seems like a perfect introduction to their grammar stage history curriculum and a perfect choice for us right now!  My plan use these two books and  then jump back in where we left of studying Ancient Greece and Rome.  I would really like to get the history cards for all of their curriculum sets and have the kids memorize the whole timeline (the songs) before we go back, but buying them all at once seems a little pricey...Anyone know if you can get just the songs and not the whole curriculum?

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How do you teach History to your kids? 

Kindergarten Science...Take Two

This post contains affiliate links to products we use and love!

This week I am taking the time to talk about how I teach each subject and also what changes I am making for the rest of the year.  If you didn't read the Classical Kindergarten...Take Two intro post, take a minute to read that first so you understand why I am making some changes for the rest of the year.

How we have been doing Science

We have been taking a pretty casual approach to science this year.  Upon the recommendation of The Well Trained Mind, we've been going through the Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals.  Two times a week we pick an animal and read about it from the encyclopedia.  I usually go to the library and try to find a 'living' type book about the animal to read to the kids as well.  I like that this is simply a reading and discovery time.

I created these Animal Kingdom Notebooking Pages to keep track of the animals that we study.  We fill out one page (and draw on another) per animal and keep the pages bound together in a book (using my new favorite tool).  My son likes to look back at the animals he has learned about, and this is a pretty neat way to have all the info together.

We use the notebooking pages to record:

• Where the animal lives
• What type of land the animal lives on
• What the animal eats
• What eats the animal
• Whatever we find interesting (in the form of a written narration)

I really like this simple introduction to science.  We usually complete this process (reading and notebooking) at the table while we eat breakfast.  Sometimes my son tires of the notebooking pages, but I figured out why and will share that in the next section =)

Science Changes

The most simple thing I had to change about our science routine was the narration section on the notebooking pages.  The Well Trained Mind recommends that the parent writes the narration for the child for at least the beginning of the 1st grade year.  I had been making my son write his own narration (and he is just 5).  He is fully capable of writing a sentence or two, but he would rather not =)  Just today we did a science page and I told him that he could tell me what he learned and I would write it for him and he said "Thanks, mom!  That's the only part I didn't like!"  Well that was easy =)

The other change we are making is really an addition.  My son has been asking and asking to do experiments.  He looks through science experiment books and makes up experiments of his own and keeps asking for experiments.  I really didn't want to throw random science experiments into the mix, so I really didn't know what to do.  I figured we would wait until next year when the subject matter might lend itself more easily to experiments.

Then one day I discovered Elemental Science.  Paige, the creator, had linked up one of her blog posts to Trivium Tuesdays (the classical education link-up here at Living and Learning at Home) and I noticed that she had a curriculum that was based on the resource recommendations from The Well Trained Mind.

The Biology for the Grammar Stage curriculum lays out lesson plans using the Kingfisher book we are already using and, lo and behold, includes experiments! It also includes narration pages, quizzes, and coloring pages.  This, just like math and spelling, is going along with the theme of taking some of the planning work off of my shoulders.  We are just starting this tomorrow, so I'll look forward to telling you more about it once we get a chance to use it for a while!
 

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How do you teach Science to your kids? 

Kindergarten Math...Take Two

This post contains affiliate links to products we use and love!

This week I am taking the time to talk about how I teach each subject and also what changes I am making for the rest of the year.  If you didn't read the Classical Kindergarten...Take Two intro post, take a minute to read that first so you understand why I am making some changes for the rest of the year.

How we have been doing Math

Since last year we have been using Ray's Arithmetic for our math studies.  I got this suggestion from classical-homeschooling.org.  I've written two posts about how we have used Ray's:

• Ray's Arithmetic in Action
• Classical Curriculum - Arithmetic Workbooks Review

Essentially, the grammar of math (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) is taught through story problems.  The child is encouraged to use manipulatives to solve problems until they understand enough to do the problems in their head.

Each day we will talk through about ten story problems like, "Johnny had 9 apples.  His mom gave him 3 more.  How many apples did he have then?"  Then my son will do a corresponding workbook page to reinforce the math facts.

I really do like this no-frills method.  My son is learning his addition and subtraction very well.  He truly understands what is going on and this is setting him up for success later on in his math career. 

The problem is what I talked about in the Classical Kindergarten...Take Two intro post.  My son is getting super frustrated and easily discouraged lately.  While I know that he is capable of doing the work from Ray's Arithmetic (because he gets the answers just fine when he focuses long enough to do the problems), I feel like I need to bring things back a bit to help him re-gain confidence and to show him that working to get things done is worth it.  I want to remember that he is just five and don't want to push him to frustration while missing out on these special early years.

Math Changes

I decided to take a look at what other classical education folks suggested for kindergarten.  I don't know why I hadn't noticed this before, but Veritas Press, The Well Trained Mind, and Classical Conversations all recommend Saxon for kindergarten math.  Veritas Press mentioned that most kindergarteners would be more than ready to handle Saxon 1 (instead of K), but I decided to start at the beginning.

What I feel my son could benefit from is the fun part of kindergarten math.  Things like patterns, simple measuring, counting money, etc.  This is exactly what Saxon K offers.  Another bonus (for me) is that it is a scripted program.  Every few months I get overwhelmed with planning and think "I'm just going to buy a box curriculum!"  I look online and am reminded why I don't want to do that (personally).  I'm thinking that a few subjects being scripted might be a good compromise for right now.


We've just been doing Saxon for about a week, but so far it is the perfect way to start the day!  Another bonus is that my preschooler can also handle it (remember, everyone says it's easy for kindergarten) so it's something that we can all do together.  The kids both LOVE the manipulative set and ask to use items from it even when it's not math time.

So right now we are doing a lesson (or two) from Saxon K each morning and then a few times a week we are still doing a lesson from Ray's (because it's so good for learning the math facts). 

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How do you teach Math to your kids? 

Kindergarten Language Arts ...Take Two

This post contains affiliate links to products we use and love!

This week I am taking the time to talk about how I teach each subject and also what changes I am making for the rest of the year.  If you didn't read the Classical Kindergarten...Take Two intro post, take a minute to read that first so you understand why I am making some changes for the rest of the year.

Back in August, I wrote a post outlining which curriculum choices we were going to be using this year.  To refresh you, this is what we have been using for Language Arts:

• McGuffey's First Reader
• Primary Language Lessons
• Classical Copywork
• The Writing Road to Reading

How we have been doing Language Arts

 

Primary Language Lessons

If you are familiar with me at all you will know that I love copywork.  We fit it in almost every day, though it is not always part of our language arts time.  A key time we do copywork is along with our Primary Language Lessons studies.  (You can read my full review of Primary Language Lessons at The Curriculum Choice.) 

Primary Language Lessons is a Charlotte  Mason style grammar book.  We use it twice a week as a gentle introduction to all things grammar.  Each lesson is short and can be oral or written.  There are picture studies, observation lessons, true grammar lessons, selections to memorize, and more.  When we get to the poems, I have my son copy a stanza a day using my Poetry for Kids copywork pack.  There are many other lessons that I also turn in to copywork for him.

15 minutes, twice a week...easy, gentle Kindergarten Language Arts.  I like it.

McGuffey's First Reader

Oh, how I love these little, old books!   I start my kids on the McGuffey Primer as soon as they start learning to read.  The difficulty progression is just right and I am always surprised at how quickly they turn into great little readers.  This year my son has been working through McGuffey's First Reader.  

The only problem with these little, old books is that they do not come with a lot of teacher instruction.  I guess they really don't need much, since the lessons are so short and sweet, but I always find myself thinking that I should be doing something more with each lesson.  Earlier in the year I came up with the idea to do some editing along with our McGuffey lessons.

Each week (two of the days that we do not do Primary Language Lessons) my son reads a new lesson in the reader.  He simply reads through the story.  They are charming little stories that teach great lesson and have great morals. Beforehand, I look through the lesson and pick out a simple sentence and write it clearly in a notebook, but I write it with errors.  I make simple errors that my kindergarten son can identify.  Errors like not capitalizing the first letter of the sentence or first letter in a person's name, missing punctuation at the end of the sentence, or misspelling a simple word that he should know how to spell easily.  Then I make a little box on the next line for each error that is in the sentence.  Usually there are between five and ten errors.  My so just loves this!  He is so proud to find each mistake and cross that box off!

The second day in the week that we have a McGuffey lesson, my son reads through the same story.  I listen to make sure that he reads it a little more confidently and with more fluency than the first time read it earlier in the week.  Then I bring out the editing book again.  I have the same sentence written with the same errors.  He gets to fix the same exact mistakes as the first time.  Usually on the first day he misses a few, or fixes something incorrectly.  This second time, he moves through the sentence more confidently, and he usually gets them all right!  I think this is a really good exercise for him.


If you like this idea, but don't want to go to the trouble of writing out your own sentences, you could use a book like Daily Editing Practice.  It's really not too hard to do on your own, though, and I like have it correspond to something my son is already reading.

15 minutes, twice a week.  Cuddle on the couch and read together.  Reading, grammar, and morals all in one.  I like it!

The Writing Road to Reading

This is one of the very first books I got when my son was first getting ready to learn to read.  I have a full review of it coming out later this month (I'll have to link to it once it is published), but I'll talk about it quickly here.

The concepts in this book are wonderful.  I taught my son to read when he was three using the method laid out in The Writing Road to Reading.  The only problelm with this book is that, while it clearly lays out the method of teaching writing/reading/spelling, it doesn't have any type of lesson plans.  This wasn't a problem when I was only teaching my son, but now that I have two to teach, the time I have available to put together my own plans is more limited.

At the end of  the summer, I put together weekly plans for this, focusing on the spelling rules.  The rules in the book are wonderful, but I really didn't know what to do to teach them.  I made notebooks for my kids, but because I didn't really know what to do, we have not been using them as often as I'd like.

For kindergarten, my son is probably a pretty good speller, but I really want him to understand the rules better so that he can know that he is spelling words correctly and not just guess.

Love the principles, recommend the book, but right now it's just not enough.  I need a little more hand-holding on the one right now, so I made a change.

Language Arts Changes

After much reading and browsing online, I finally decided on a new spelling curriculum.  Just last week we started using All About Spelling!  I was so excited when the package came in the mail!

• 3x5 cards used to learn new concepts and review old ones...check!

• Spelling Rules to memorize...check!

• Scripted lesson plans to save me time...check!

Seriously, it seems like exactly what I am looking for.  We have done two lessons so far and it is just right.  If you read my intro post to this series, you know that part of what I'm looking for right now is material that my son can master easily, without feeling the need to get discouraged or frustrated.  I got Level 1 in All About Spelling for just that reason.  Like I said, my son is a pretty decent speller for his age and I think he could have gone right into Level 2, but I wanted to start with Level 1 to (hopefully) let him see that this can be fun and help him to solidify the skills that he already has.

A bonus is that it is just the level that my daughter needs right now, so we can all do it together!  I know that my son will be able to move faster through it than her, so I'm not sure if we will stay slow for her, or if I'll have to start doing their lessons separately at some point.  I'll figure that out later =)

For now, All About Spelling looks like a wonderful curriculum and a perfect fit for my son!

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How do you teach Language Arts to your kids? 

Classical Kindergarten...Take Two

Kindergarten Language Arts...Take Two

Kindergarten Math...Take Two

Kindergarten Science...Take Two

Kindergarten History...Take Two

Kindergarten Arts...Take Two

Compared to many of you, I am fairly new to this homeschooling thing.  It feels like I've been doing it for a long time because I always knew I would homeschool my kids, so I have had the homeschool mindset ever since my son was 2.  Really, this is my first year with a 'real' school aged child.  My son is 5, so technically this is kindergarten for him.

Just like many of you, I started the year out with a plan.  I really liked the materials we were using and the kids were learning (my 3 yr old tags along in pretty much everything that we do).  As the time for Christmas break approached, though, I noticed a change in my son.

I have always pushed my son to do well, and he has always done very well.  The past month or so he has still been learning as always, but there has been a change in his attitude.  He has been getting easily frustrated, giving up on anything that requires more than an ounce of thought.  School time began to be a time of frustration for both of us. 

I don't know if it is just a mental development change that he is going through, if this is typical of a 5-year-old boy, or if it is how I am doing the teaching (or maybe a combination of those or something completely different!), but I do know that something has to change.  Even though he does most things at a grade level or more higher than kindergarten...

I want to take a few months to bring things back to a kindergarten level.  

I don't want to miss this great age for the sake of increased knowledge.  

I want to give him things that he can accomplish confidently to show him that he can do it.  

I don't want to have his head, but lose his heart. 

This series, Classical Kindergarten...Take Two, is going to go through five subjects, talking about how I teach them, what we have been doing, and how we are making changes for the rest of the year.  I really do love all the materials we have been using, so I'm not really switching things, more so putting some of them on pause and tweaking others.